It cannot be surprising that agencies lack constraints when issuing regulations, since the Congress that delegates power to them itself lacks restraint. And, the president repeated says he will make law even when Congress won’t, that he “won’t wait.”

How has it come to this? It should concern all of us that lawless legislation (there’s a phrase) and regulation encroach upon ever-more aspects of normal daily life.

As Obama’s speech today will underscore, the national government recognizes few constitutional bounds that would otherwise constrain interference.

The national(!) government simply does what it wants in finance, education, retirement, healthcare, communications and Internet, personal privacy and the right to anonymity, cybersecurity, energy access, infrastructure, environmental amenities or markets for safety.

We can improve OMB’s annual Benefits and Costs reviews, but fundamental change, to use a phrase, means congressional accountability and ending “regulation without representation” rather than merely denouncing derivative agencies or scolding OMB’s inadequate audits.

Variants of what is now REINS emerged since the 1990s (Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona, Rep. Nick Smith of Michigan and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas all introduced congressional accountability legislation).

The basic idea provides for limiting regulatory agency discretion with an expedited but mandatory congressional vote on big regulations (usually “economically significant” rules with $100 million in annual impact).

Potentially burdensome new regulation would thus become subject to legislative procedures appropriate to their magnitude, thereby “reining” in the failure to maintain constitutional separation of powers between legislation and execution.

Ours is indeed a separation of powers crisis; but the more fundamental a crisis is that of the elected national government having far much power in the first place.

REINS doesn’t quite address that reality.

That is the real issue at hand; that clashes between free enterprise and a planned economy, between the individual and the state.

In the meantime, though, while the President uses grand anniversaries to call for yet more government intervention that caused the crises he commemorates, OMB must do the best job of reviewing and documenting the regulatory state that it possibly can, and the Draft Report is the current vehicle.